So elated that the road to this trailhead is open again. This area is beautiful and has a sort of choose your adventure thing going on with various options including waterfalls, creek crossings, lakes, and peaks. With a few hours for a hike in the late afternoon, I combined a visit to the views of Keekwulee Falls with Franklin Falls. This ended up being about 6.5 miles and 1350 ft of elevation gain. Franklin Falls trail was snow free and the Denny Creek trail had some snow but thankfully didn’t require special traction to the Keekwulee Falls views. The snow got more serious after that point and would probably require gear.

All the waterfalls and rivers were quite flowing (amazing how much spray was coming off of Franklin Falls) but Denny Creek was not a beast to cross over at the waterslide rocks area today. The log that was there last fall has so far survived and was helpful today for me and the dog. In the boulder area approaching the views, a pika or two meeped at us.

There were trillium and skunk cabbage blooming everywhere. On the Denny Creek trail there were also white marsh marigold and glacier lilies. I also happened to notice the most beautiful trillium I’d ever seen (see photo), and later realized why. It was different. Do you notice something odd about it?

Bathrooms and trash receptacles both in the upper parking and lower parking near Franklin Falls trailhead were open and serviced. The ones at the Denny Creek trailhead were still closed.

We wanted to stretch our legs midway home from hiking Whiskey Dick Wildlife area, so wandered out to see Franklin Falls. The trail was busy, but the parking lot had plenty of spaces at 4:00 pm. The trail was a little muddy it spots with some lingering ice, but easily managed. Lots of families out on this beautiful day!

We were happy to see this trail open (wasn't sure if the government cuts would have an impact, and found misleading information elsewhere) but the road, parking lots, bathrooms were all open. We bought our National Forest Pass online beforehand. The new parking lots are great, and were about a third full at 11 and 1 on a Saturday.

This is such a pretty hike. Lots of trillium and skunk cabbage, and the trees were well on their way to leaves. We saw a pair of stellar jays in the trees overhead, and a chipmunk in the parking lot. Still many patches of snow off the trail, but none to walk through. There were a few wet & muddy steps on the wagon trail, but most of this was firm packed dirt. Lovely trail maintenance work -- this trail is in beautiful condition. 

Spoke with the climbers in my photos and they said this was a rare opportunity to climb the middle section of the falls versus on the rock walls to the left or to the right, so now is probably the peak time to go see the falls frozen if you can.   I was just going to do an update to my trip report from Feb 10 (yeah just three days ago, but so worth the drive out again). Today was overcast with light to moderate snowing. Blows my mind how single digit lows over the past few days has made the falls a curtain of ice from what I saw on Monday and the pool of water disappear overnight from what I saw in a Tuesday report. In fact, it was very mesmerizing watching water flow out from the impact hole, try to travel downstream over the ice and snow, and not get very far before freezing and then going a different direction. If you see those little streams, watch them, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Enjoy and be safe! As I mentioned in my previous report, bring traction for your shoes and your vehicle. You’ll be happy you did so.

Such a special winter hike to bring family on with the current combination of recently fallen snow and a mostly frozen waterfall. Definitely do this on a weekday if you can to avoid and reduce the weekend crowd. Big bit of advice from this report…have traction for you and your vehicle. Was out there late morning for a midday hike. The road got more snowy as we approached the parking lot and no one was controlling traffic at the start, so we ended up encountering a sedan without chains having trouble near the end. But while we were hiking, the road had been serviced with road salt/sand and we saw no stranded vehicles on our way out. For the trail we wore spikes/crampons and had no issues hiking quickly and securely down to the falls. But we encountered another family that didn’t have traction and they weren’t sure they could make the last ten feet to the top of the steps where you can see the falls. I knew the steps could be bad, but I hadn’t realized even that section before can be troublesome without aid. I hope they were able to make it down and up slowly and safely to see the falls from the first viewpoint. This is why trip reports are so handy.